UGA Innovation Fellows

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Innovation Fellows:

The Faculty Innovation Fellows program aims to encourage faculty and staff of the University of Georgia to pursue their interest in commercialization and product development. This program, announced by President Jere W. Morehead during a  State of the University Address, will be administered by the Office of Research. As an Innovation Fellow, faculty will learn more about the pathways of translating their research or ideas into industry.

Benefits

Fellows will be immersed in the culture of innovation on campus, and be given the time to pursue the connection between their innovative research ideas and industry. Through this process they will be given training in how to successfully translate a research project into a product on the market, and will also receive mentorship from fellow faculty and industry partners.

In addition, each Fellow will receive up to $10,000 in funding to facilitate the customer discovery process and to continue building industry relationships.

 Expectations

The Fellows program will be a semester long commitment. The program will start with a weeklong immersion in UGA’s Innovation Curriculum (based on NSF I-Corps) and will then be minimum 8 hour/week commitment to move forward the Fellow’s research ideas into industry relevant product areas. The funding will be available for 12 months from the start of the fellowship.

 Eligibility

This program is open to any faculty (tenured/tenure-track/non-tenure-track) in any department of the University of Georgia.

 Application

Interested and motivated faculty can access the program application.
In your application you will be asked to include:

  • A one-page proposal giving details of your research area and the industry you want to explore, together with the potential achievement that could come from this semester long opportunity.
  • A two-page CV highlighting your work in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship space
  • A one-page Letter of Support from your Department Chair (Template)

 Questions?

If you have any questions, or would like to discuss your application in advance, please contact Christy Anderson to set up a time to do so.